A Monday Morning Brawl


Monday mornings. Tell me how do you feel about them?

You wish to know how I feel about Mondays first eh?

Honestly not good at all! Let's just say the week would have been a lot better without Mondays in it! Too much? Maybe. But I could certainly have done without this very Monday.

You know it began with our stand-by Manager, (yes better to call him that!) sitting in the comforts of Melbourne, shooting a number of mails to us here. Let's just say they were such that we all just wanted to stop working altogether.

You would have come across people who don't listen to anyone but continue living in their own concocted universe? Yes? I thought so. You know as much as I'm for 'to each their own' ideology, it becomes a tad harder when the person refusing to listen to any argument turns out to be your manager. So here we began our Monday with a mail exchange which, let's just say, was our version of fighting off a school yard bully. How successful we were? Well, only time will tell. Bullies don't change within a day, do they?

Enough of that though. Why should I give him so much space in my blog? Right? Mails over and done with and so he's done with too, for today at-least. Tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow we'll fight another battle.

But the bitterness certainly lingers. Is the concept of being on the same team, even though spread across two different continents, so hard to grasp? I've seen on many occasions, in my not so long career, that once people move to the 'coveted onsite' they seem to treat those back in India very distastefully. Now I find that very hard to understand because I never quite understood the lure of onsite in the first place.

Of-course, these are hardly discussed. We are expected to deal with it. That's the elephant in the room you could say. We know it's unfair but we are supposed to bow to every whim and fancy of those sitting at client locations. But that doesn't work for me. So on occasions like today, when I see an unfair rebuttal of a sincere request, I end up having arguments. With a liberal dose of sarcasm I should add. After all, I'm doing the same work hence I ain't keeping quiet, also knowing that I'm in the right.

Life would have been so much easier if people were understanding. If only they listened, don't you think?

I wonder what happens when people move up the ladder. Do they forget the issues and struggles they had to face daily as beginners? Or, do they take out their frustration purposefully on subordinates? Sometimes I feel all this is done with spite. Exceptions aside, I've hardly seen a manager actually helping his or her subordinate. It's almost as if they want to say that 'I have suffered and so I'll make you suffer too'. Some kind of payback, is it?

I don't know what kind of a manager I will become. Only time will tell. But I don't think I'll turn into a bully who doesn't listen to his own team members. Yes, I know I won't be that.

Tell me your experiences with a manager or as a manager? Don't you think a manager who bullies his team or who turns a deaf ear to the team's issues is an out and out failure. I certainly feel so and it would suffice to say that our stand-by manager is one such soul.

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